


i'm losing by their side

by foxmulder_whereartthou



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: ? I suppose, Character Study, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Pre-Canon, and i think its really interesting how he is implied to have had the same, and suicide is mentioned, but with seele, kaworu is a strange and important character to me, there are parts of draftworu in there so i must sadly say, theyre shitty dads, upbringing as rei
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29710302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmulder_whereartthou/pseuds/foxmulder_whereartthou
Summary: Kaworu lives, mildly, in the time between creation and Tokyo-3. The Angel of Free Will, ironically, is kept under supervision.
Relationships: Ikari Shinji/Nagisa Kaworu
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	i'm losing by their side

"Honestly, Tabris, why do you keep doing this to yourself?" 

The question is not out of kindness; it’s tone is rotten and rude. The nurse does not like him, Kaworu thinks. It's routine now, getting scolded for this, when they both know he'll just do it again.

"You're going to end up killing yourself one of these days, and then you'll be no use to anybody," the nurse spits, bandaging him up a little too harshly, and then adding, under his breath - "and I'll have wasted my time with you."

Kaworu doesn't care. He saw a cat yesterday, and it looked up at him with eyes so innocent that he finally understood the way novelists spoke of women's gazes as doe-like. He thinks of asking for more, for stories and pens and paper, because as SEELE love to say, he's insatiable once he's gotten a taste of something. 

"Tabris, are you even listening to me?"

* * *

SEELE likes to believe they’re tearing him down and building him up again - as parents would, they say, as parents would - and Kaworu likes to let them believe that. 

He sinks back in his chair and thinks of art, thinks of music. Wonders if SEELE would like Saturn Devouring His Son - Kaworu saw that one in a book, once - and wonders who is the titular Saturn, and who is his son. 

Kaworu is not stupid, he knows of his fate.

  
“Tabris, you know of your fate.”

He knows of SEELE’s, too, one they plan to bring upon themselves.

“And of ours, naturally.”

Naturally. It is always natural to know these things. Natural, like the stars in the sky, or like how some people are said to have pianist’s fingers. Kaworu likes piano - he’s a good player and a quick learner - but he wonders if he’s been built to play it, or if it’s a fate he chose for himself.

“We must inform you that everything is falling into place. You will be relocated to Tokyo-3 before the week’s end.”

NERV’s slogan is strange. Kaworu’s seen it a thousand times in a thousand different hallways and on a thousand different uniforms, and still he doesn’t understand it. The separation of God from the world - is that how they believe it to be? 

They revere him as Tabris, an angel, and then bend him easily like an aluminium bar, like a toy, something they own and can destroy without guilt. Kaworu never was allowed to be the child that SEELE continues to be.

He doesn’t hate them - doesn’t know how to. But in the same vein he knows that he cannot love them either. Angels cannot love men but they can be harmlessly indifferent to them; they can also like them, sometimes. Kaworu read this in a novel once, and alone in SEELE’s room, he strains to remember the name.

* * *

On a beach, in the light of a sun that’s still clinging to the dusk, a boy turns to him and begs with his eyes. They’re large and doe-like, and Kaworu wants to kiss his eyelids. He didn’t think it would come to this.

**Author's Note:**

> 'saturn devouring his son' is a famous, awful painting, and the quote is from the mysterious stranger by mark twain, and in full, reads: 'no, we [angels] cannot love men, but we can be harmlessly indifferent to them. we can also like them, sometimes.'  
> and the title is from i bet on losing dogs by mitski :)
> 
> thank you for reading !! ^^


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